1 6 PRIMEVAL MAN. 



Most true ! and equally true was it that 

 this desire of knowledge was burning in- 

 tensely in him when it wrung from him no 

 confession ; or rather, when it was interwoven 

 into the very tissue of which his immortal 

 Confessions are composed. In them no more 

 splendid passages occur than those in which 

 he turns the eye of his curiosity inwards 

 upon the secrets of his own nature, and asks 

 a thousand unanswerable questions on the 

 structure and the power of Memory. What 

 and where are those innumerable chambers, — 

 those vast halls, — which hold in perpetual 

 imagery not only all he had ever seen, but 

 all he had ever conceived and known ? How 

 can the immensities of Time and Space, of 

 earth, and sky, and ocean, be thus contained? 



